


the forecast calls for storms

by buckstiel



Category: Campaign (Podcast), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Maz Kanata Fucks, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Slice of Life, Takodana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 10:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckstiel/pseuds/buckstiel
Summary: On a slow day at the cantina, two separate migraines show up to try and ruin Maz's day.





	the forecast calls for storms

**Author's Note:**

> if you have stumbled onto this with no knowledge of campaign, i hope you give it a shot because starting it is honestly one of my 2017 highlights. it's very good and i love it very very much.
> 
> this is unbeta'd. it's late and i wanted to post and my usual go-tos are very much sleeping.

About once every standard year--sometimes more but never less--Maz Kanata would ask herself if she was getting too old for all this, the smugglers and bounty hunters, the union disputes and black market contracts gone awry that disrupted the flow of music and grog in her otherwise idyllic underworld haven. She would answer the question the same way every time, but she dreaded its arrival all the same. More often than not of late it was accompanied less by a strange twinge in her knees in the morning and more by strange whispers of tension growing out past Wild Space--or a bar fight fueled by too much Port in a Storm and stray remarks that wouldn’t have sparked such a mess even two years earlier.

Today was a slow day and the question came all the same when two particularly disreputable patrons sat down at the bar within minutes of each other.

(And when Maz described her patrons as “disreputable,” heads turned, and not because of how redundant it looked on the surface. All of the patrons of her cantina were disreputable by the galaxy’s broader concept, but few checked all the criteria on her own definition. To be particularly disreputable, then, was a feat none aspired to and few had achieved.)

“Are you going to tell me what your real name is yet, or what?” she sighed at the first man fidgeting on his stool. He bit at the inside of his lip as he pushed forward a single ten-credit chit while looking around at anything but her.

Granted, her glasses were at a higher-than-normal magnification after working on the boiler earlier that morning, and Han had told her more than once that it was unnerving. She still knew the man well enough to know it wasn’t the only factor at play.

“Fine,” she said. “So what’ll it be?”

“Is th-th-that Zabrak not working today? She really makes the best cocktails.”

“In _my_ cantina, the best cocktails come from me. And no,” Maz said. “She’s off today. What does she normally fix you?”

The man rolled his eyes dramatically and stared up at the lone spine knot of a krayt dragon that hung from the ceiling. “I’ll take a bantha blaster. Tryin’ somethin’ different, I guess.”

As many questions as she had, if too many arose the other patrons that kept the cantina running would find somewhere else to dock between jobs, so she swallowed as many as would fit as she fetched the juices and spritzes that gave the cocktail its signature pop, all while sneaking whatever glances she could at the rest of what this mysterious individual had to offer.

Human, late forties, never seen without that worn leather duster and matching hat askew on his head--though now there was a metal plate attached along the front with clumsy stitching and an even clumsier engraving.

She nodded up to the plate. “‘Don’t join’? Don’t join what?”

He glanced up as if he could see it on his head himself. “Either side,” he said with a smirk.

There was a night--maybe a year and a half, two years ago, if Maz’s memory wasn’t prone to blurring time into something unrecognizable--where Chewbacca had sat with her as the cantina shut down for the night and complained about the new guy in the corner who had not only swindled Han out of the money he was planning to use to pay back Kanjiklub but also managed to insult Leia Organa and the late Governor Pryce. Not that Chewie cared about insulting former Imperial leadership, of course, but Leia was a matter on a different plane entirely. Han had broken the man’s nose and a former Imperial sympathizer from Lothal had busted his lip, and he officially showed up on her radar.

Insulting both sides, joining neither--the situation finally made sense, even if he himself made next to none. Maz had seen her fair share of conflict. Remaining in the middle only left you eventually straddling a gulf too wide for your legs to manage.

So not only was he disreputable; he was naive to a fault. Stupid, even.

Yes, Maz was going to go with stupid.

The pink and green contents of the glass swirled and fizzed as she placed it before him. “One bantha blaster,” she said. “And how about I call you DJ?”

“Fine by me,” he said. “Everyone else already d-d-d-does.”

Just as she thought one nightmare had been shut up by booze, the door to the otherwise empty cantina was practically kicked open, slamming against the wall and sending a few splinters flying that would undoubtedly catch in the bare feet of a couple smugglers slated to pass through in the next few days.

That was the first problem.

The second problem laid with the loud groan that followed immediately after, an over-the-top guttural smear into the relative peace of the room that pulled DJ’s attention from the bantha blaster and back to reality, where she hoped he would not return for a while.

“Use your words, Mr. Valentine,” she said without looking up from the glass she’d taken to polishing. “I promise you, they’re much more effective.”

“Maz!” he said. “Maz, Maz, Maz, Maz…” He held his arms spread wide like he was greeting an old friend--which, maybe he thought he was, but he was sorely mistaken.

He hopped onto a stool, leaving about five empty spaces between him and DJ, and he had certainly captured at least the interest of his fellow patron. Tryst Valentine hardly knew the meaning of subtle, running a hand through his long blond hair dramatically streaked with silver, his thumb tracing the line of a thick angry scar crossing his cheek that he’d tried and failed to tell Maz about four separate times.

“I’ve had a hell of a few weeks, Maz,” he said.

“Mhm.”

“Can I get, uh…” He paused, fishing the credits out of an inside pocket on his vest. “Kriff, I’ve never had a pink nebula. Not sure why Leenik’s so crazy about them.”

Maz set about pouring the pink juice into the typical tall curvy glass, praying to the Force that the two of them would not acknowledge each other in the slightest, just sip at their grog and contemplate the krayt dragon spine and fight for her attention that they desired so badly to travel to a forgotten corner of the galaxy instead of any of the other millions of cantinas in more convenient systems.

But no--today was a day where she would contemplate her age and, stars willing, murder.

“Sorry to hear about your divorce, Maz,” Tryst said just as she dropped a slice of muja fruit into the finished product.

Regret flooded her mouth, and she bit her tongue to keep it from showing. Muja fruit was reserved for the best of patrons, and perhaps she had been too optimistic that it would keep Tryst from acting out while DJ was there, but the regret stung all the same.

Regret at giving him the muja fruit she couldn’t fish out, regret at letting him into the cantina at all, and even a little regret at letting loose lips flap across the stars. A non-disclosure agreement of sorts should have been included in the papers, really. It only made sense to, considering the nature of her lifestyle; but when emotions run high, sense is the first thing to go.

“It is what it is,” she said.

“Took you long enough,” DJ said into his drink.

Tryst turned to stare at him so quickly that a few pink globs sprayed onto the bar and Maz was ready to pack it in for the day, and maybe the entire week.

(No, Orati was counting on the revenue for her maternity leave, and if she was going to have a healthy baby and DJ was ever going to get those cocktails he so loved--)

“That’s overly familiar,” Tryst said, right as Maz added, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

DJ grinned as he took a long chug of his bantha blaster. He set it back down, missing the coaster Maz had supplied for him, and still he said nothing.

“You’re an animal. Who comes to an establishment like this and leaves rings on this nice of a wood?” And Tryst actually stood to emphatically put DJ’s drink on a coaster, maintaining eye contact the entire time. It would have been sweet had Maz not known anything about him.

“Don’t act l-like you didn’t come flying here as soon as you heard for y-y-y-y-yourself,” DJ said, and at that, Tryst could only frown.

Typical.

Word spread quickly in the underworld--its foundations were cemented in the handshakes and winks behind closed doors, so it was no wonder that once her ex-husband left Takodana for good half her patrons likely knew at least the end result of what had happened. In the instants after, all their contacts would know, and then their contacts’ contacts; and a couple days would go by, the news having finally reached the crew of the Mynock, which meant Tryst would divert their course back to this corner of the galaxy.

That was something Maz could speak to. DJ, of course, was another story altogether.

“Ignore him,” Tryst said. “Maz, you know what kind of business I’m in. And you’ve built yourself quite the reputation for the sorts--”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Valentine.”

“I’m--uh--that’s not…” he spluttered, and soon he was pressing a hand to his comms earpiece. “Stop it. _No_ , I don’t need help. _I got this_.” 

DJ only laughed into the last dregs of his drink, and it turned Tryst’s face a blustering crimson. 

“Look, I know you don’t like me. I’ve picked up on that. But--” With that, he leaned forward, chin in hand and grinning wider than was really warranted. “My crew and I, we need some information. We have nothing to offer since you already have everything you could ever want in the galaxy, except for, dare I say it--”

“Please do not--”

“--a night with the best _lay_ in the galaxy.” He gestured to his own face with a wink. 

She stared at him, squinting, then adjusting her glasses to zoom in even further; he recoiled enough to pull his chin from his hand, which was amusing until DJ snorted into his hand. “Just as I thought.” 

“Which is?” Tryst said tentatively.

“There was a small, tiny chance that I had misidentified you and that you were too polite to correct me, but no. You’re still you. And not,” she added, straightening a line of shot glasses on a shelf under the bar, “the galaxy’s best lay.” 

She waited for him to protest--he should have protested--but he instead turned his attention back to his pink nebula, head tilted toward the side with the comlink earpiece. Whatever was happening on the other end was loud enough for Maz to pick up even at her distance away, though nothing sounded clearer than vaguely garbled static. 

Outside the cantina, off closer to the widest section of beach the lake had, something metal slammed with a clang, sending a flock of birds cawing and zipping into the sky. She knew better than to assume it wasn’t related to Tryst’s static.

“Hey.” DJ slid another credit chit to her edge of the bar. “Round two?”

Most humans she encountered on Takodana were like Tryst--Han too, back in their first meeting--wary when her mood dipped closer to south than before, anxious almost to the point of fear when her glasses magnified past a certain level and focused close in their direction. _Maz_ , Han said, weary with a new father’s exhaustion, _I know you’ve told me a thousand times you got those for looking at those relics you have, but most people think you’re looking into their souls. It’s unnerving._  

Except to DJ. She squinted at DJ with the magnification turned up another couple notches, shoving the chit into the till slot, and he didn’t blink. Made no move to acknowledge it. No recognition flickered in the dead light behind his pupils, a light she had not come across often in the eyes of others in her travels. 

“Another bantha blaster?” 

“Nah, l-l-l-lemme get whatever he’s having.” 

“One pink nebula--” 

“Easy on the pink, though.”

Before Maz had a chance to ask him what in the kriff that meant, Tryst had already turned a full ninety degrees to stare at DJ himself. “Did you just say ‘easy on the pink’?” 

“That’s right.” DJ frowned innocently, chewing at a toothpick he’d pulled from a pocket of his duster while he stole glances at the krayt dragon spine overhead. 

“I’ve only known one other person who ordered pink nebulas like that. It doesn’t mean anything, the bartenders just indulge him--” 

“Is that r-right?” 

Tryst opened his mouth, halfway off of the barstool, and just beyond the cantina door something growled and barked--nothing that Maz had ever heard on the planet. “Karking hell, I told them to stay on the ship--which!” He turned his attention back to DJ, who was still chewing on the toothpick but with the slightest increase in the angle of his smirk. “I’d like to know if you know about, because I’ve actually managed to _learn_ things over the years which means I’m not chalking this up to coincidence. So-called ‘coincidences’”--he said with exaggerated air quotes--“always bite us in the ass!”

DJ blinked a couple times at him then turned to Maz. “Do go easy on the pink.” 

“What do you KNOW?” At this point, Tryst was shouting and Maz was beginning to pick up the shapes of words coming from his comlink, mainly various starts of questions and Tryst’s own name as whoever was on the other end tried to get his attention. “I’m serious, I’m not leaving until you start talking.” 

Maz watched the two of them as her hands worked automatically to prepare the drink--they stared each other down, DJ now with a full-blown grin like he knew Tryst should prepare to live out the rest of his days on Takodana if he was as serious as he claimed. Any other day, Maz would have tuned out long ago, having already gleaned enough gossip to dole out should one of her more trusted friends have need of it, but something about how DJ was holding himself kept her ear turned toward the confrontation. 

“Here,” she said, plopping the drink on a coaster near DJ’s hand. “I assumed ‘light on the pink’ meant less mixer and more grog.”

He didn’t indicate whether he’d heard her at all, only picking up the pink nebula and clumsily stretching his lips around the glass in search of the straw. The longer it took him to find said straw, the more pronounced Tryst’s frown became. 

“Took you long enough,” Tryst said when DJ finally was able to take a drink.

“Mmm…” DJ placed the pink nebula back on the bar, missing its coaster completely, and crossed his legs. “Is your offer to Maz transferable?”

“Uh. I, um…” Tryst floundered, pressing at his earpiece to better hear his crew. “I suppose? I mean, I don’t know why it wouldn’t be--”

Tryst was interrupted by the door of the cantina swinging open with as much force as he had inflicted upon it himself but without the scattering of future splinters. A green Rodian with a wig dangerously close to tumbling off his head made a beeline toward Tryst, pointing at him with the first finger of a prosthetic hand. “This is not what we agreed on--also,” he added more calmly, “we’ve had some complications…”

The door had not swung shut yet, and down past the courtyard and steps leading to the cantina, a Twi’lek with orange skin and the shortest lekku Maz had ever seen wrestled with a large wolf that moved like it was afflicted with arthritis in every vulnerable joint.

“Wh--wait, why isn’t Tamlin helping with that?”

“Because D20 and KAT have gotten into a _major_ fight but that is not the point, Tryst!”

“Well what _is_ the point, then?”

The Rodian covered both of his large eyes with his hands, correcting his wig in the process, and when his hands came away, they took an eyepatch that Maz had not noticed with them. Both eyes were fine--again came the question of whether she had aged out of running this cantina, but with the commotion she didn’t have enough time to dwell.

“We planned for Maz. We didn’t plan for…” the Rodian gestured vaguely at DJ. “Who is he?” he stage-whispered.

DJ sighed and motioned for the two of them to sit back down, which they did. The Rodian made a point to put himself between him and Tryst, his hands flexing at the controls of what Maz recognized as old-model shock gloves. DJ noticed them too, shifting on his stool to give himself just a couple more inches of space.

“I’m not important,” DJ said.

“Nevermind who you are, that’s not a great thing to say about yourself,” the Rodian said under his breath, but he made a point to shut himself up when Tryst elbowed him in the back.

“What I’m trying to say is that...I know p-p-p-p-people who _are_ ,” he said. “I’m on my way to Cantonica. There’s someone I need to talk to about a code slicing program there at the casino, and they’re the types of people that don’t sell bantha poodoo as legitimate inf-f-f-formation.”

If DJ had any accurate useful intel to share, Maz was tempted to bet the last winnings she gathered at the Five Sabers races--not an unsubstantial sum by any means. Enough to add droid-accessible ramps down to the basement level, at least--

“They were talking about you,” DJ said. “Or so I assume...this is the same Tryst Valentine that runs with the Leenik Geelo of Tibannopolis bounty infamy?” He pointed to the Rodian, who squirmed enough to identify himself. “Sorry for your l-l-loss.”

Leenik said nothing, but Tryst dug a knuckle into the grain of the bar.

“I’m feeling generous,” DJ said. “So I’ll tell you this for free. Also…” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t actually want to sleep with you.”

“Why not?” Tryst asked, clearly offended, but Leenik patted him on the shoulder to wordlessly talk him down.

“The Empire forgot your old original bounty after the Battle of Scarif...but the First Order is p-petty. They won’t advertise but they’re after you… trying to finish the job, see.”

DJ reached for his pink nebula and took an overly long sip through the straw. Leenik eyed it as the level of the drink visibly lowered, aiming his suspicion at the condensation dripping down the outside of the glass instead of the man holding it.

“You with the Resistance?” Leenik said after a moment.

DJ rolled his eyes, pausing to consider the krayt dragon spine once more before returning the eye contact of his fellow cantina patrons. “Hardly.”

Maz watched him as the rest of the pink nebula disappeared up into the straw, faster than grog of that kind should really be ingested by humans, and as she watched him, he kept eyeing Tryst and Leenik. Tryst was listening to whatever was passing through his earpiece, the frantic worry that had set in with DJ’s intel subsiding into something more manageable, the kind of worry that coagulated into sensible action.

Or: at least it did in other people.

“Well...thank you,” Leenik said, standing and grabbing Tryst by the elbow. “This wasn’t what we were looking for but...it’s more useful, I’d say.”

“Yeah,” Tryst muttered as he followed him out. He offered Maz and DJ a wave passing through the door back outside where the Twi’lek waited for them impatiently, the issue with the wolf apparently under control.

Half an hour later, the sound of a struggling old-model skip speeder grumbled overhead, drowning out DJ’s last attempts to fish out the remaining bits of alcohol hidden between ice cubes at the bottom of his glass. As much as Tryst was a potential nightmare, being left alone with DJ was not what Maz considered an ideal rest of the afternoon--for all she knew, his pocket of credits was bottomless and even the band she’d hired for the next few weeks wouldn’t show up until close to sundown.

“Did I just see Mr. ‘Don’t Join’ actively work against the First Order?” she said after another hour of silence.

“It’ll all balance out in th-th-the end.” He sipped up the last of the melted ice from his pink nebula and nudged the glass toward Maz’s side of the bar. “It always does.”

He left a couple more credit chits on his unused coaster before he left, offering little more than a nod and a sloppy salute before closing the door to the cantina behind him. Maz sighed against the quiet left in his wake--something galaxy-churning was coming, ready to upset the tenuous balance in place since the Battle of Jakku, and there was little she could do except ensure enough booze was in stock for when the shit really hit the fan.

More than anything, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but she’d lived too long to be that naive.


End file.
